7 Places to Ride out the Apocalypse

Whether it be the Mayan Apocalypse, a nuclear winter, viral epidemic or zombie outbreak – whatever the method – you can rest assured that the apocalypse is coming. When the end of civilization as we know it arrives, you’ll need somewhere safe and warm to weather the storm. Here, follows seven secure places to ride out the apocalypse.

Every home should have a reasonable defence.

7. KWK Promes Safe House

The house in its ‘open mode’.

Poland’s premier architecture and designs studio, KWK Promes, have been producing intriguing and innovative buildings for a number of years, but with the ‘Safe House’, completed in 2009, they appear to have produced a home that is not only stylish and well-appointed, but also ready for the Apocalypse.

The house on lockdown.

Located just outside of Warsaw, the Safe House has been designed to be the ultimate in home security. With seven foot walls surrounding the property, as well as a drawbridge and retractable walls, this is a house that can transform from a modernist-luxury homestead into an impregnable fortress. One-and-a-half-foot-thick concrete encasing the property should be enough to keep the worst elements of any apocalypse at bay, making it an ideal location to ensure your survival come the end of days.

6. Cheyenne Mountain

Safety lies within.

Located a short distance from the NORAD and USNORTHCOM headquarters in Colorado Springs, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a data collection facility run as a joint venture between the US and Canadian governments. It also happens to be located two thousand feet inside the mountain.

One of the massive blast doors.

Being separated from the outside world by six hundred metres of solid rock, as well as two, twenty-five-tonne blast doors, makes the complex an ideal place to ride out a nuclear attack, as it can withstand a thirty-megaton blast from within one nautical mile (1.9 km). Designed as a facility capable of housing over two-hundred people, with no assistance from the outside world needed, Cheyenne Mountain is the perfect place to ride out the apocalypse.

5. Yamantau Mountain

This is as close as you’re likely to get – it’s heavily guarded.

The highest mountain in the Russian, Ural Mountain range is Mount Yamantau, standing at an incredible 1,640 metres. Inside this Bashkortostan behemoth purportedly exists Russia’s answer to the Cheyenne Mountain complex, but on a much grander scale. According to US satellite-imagery taken in the 1990s, an area the size of Washington DC has been carved out of the inside of the mountain.

Satellite images show an extensive support network.

It is believed to be able to house up to sixty thousand people, with enough food and water to keep this population alive for at least a year. Special air filtration systems have been installed that can withstand a nuclear, chemical or biological attack, meaning that whatever type of apocalypse strikes, you’ll be safe within Yamantau Mountain.

4. Vivos Shelters

Locations of the various ‘intended’ Vivos shelters in the US.

Based in Del Mar, California, the Vivos Group are a company devoted to the construction and maintenance of worldwide survival shelters. The group offer a number of shelter options from private ‘Vivos 8’ shelters that can be installed in your backyard, to mass communal-shelters that can house up to a thousand people.

A floor plan of one of the deluxe shelters.

All Vivos facilities are designed to withstand a twenty-megaton blast from within a few miles and can provide shelter from six months to a year. Prices range from $9,995 for a bunk in a communal shelter up to millions of dollars for a private, purpose-built shelter. So, if you’ve got the cash to spare, there’s nothing better for surviving the apocalypse than your own private Vivos shelter.

3. Converted Missile Silo

It’s a long way down.

Unsurprisingly enough, nuclear missile silos are designed to withstand nuclear attacks, which is why the number of decommissioned nuclear silos that are dotted across the US are perfect for converting into apocalypse-proof housing. Former software engineer Larry Hall has done just that with a 1960s-era, Atlas F missile silo in north Kansas.

There’s plenty of room inside.

Hall has transformed the silo into a number of luxury penthouses that cost around two million dollars each. These ‘underground condos’ are luxuriously appointed, each equipped with three double bedrooms, two bathrooms, large spacious kitchens, Jacuzzis and large HDTV panels that will simulate windows. If you want to ride out the apocalypse in style, this is the way to do it.

2. Greenbrier Bunker

Above ground, the hotel is immaculate.

In 1956, the US government approached the luxury five-star hotel, the Greenbrier, with a project named ‘Project Greek Island’. This project consisted of the creation of a secret underground bunker that would be able to house Congress should a nuclear attack occur. The bunker was built to house at least one hundred people and was fully stocked with ample supplies able to provide their basic requirements for a number of years.

Below ground, the stylish interiors are just as well kept as the five-star hotel above.

The bunker was kept fully-stocked for thirty years, but was never used as an emergency location. In 1992 it was exposed by a newspaper and shortly afterwards decommissioned. Since then, the bunker has remained empty, apart from the occasional tour group, but is a perfectly suited location to survive the apocalypse and, unlike most of the places on this list, remains completely unguarded.

1. Raven Rock Mountain Complex

You’re not allowed in.

Ten kilometres north-northeast of Camp David, is the supposedly secret Raven Rock Military complex, often referred to as ‘Site R’. The facility is designed to be a backup for the Pentagon should a disaster occur and currently runs thirty-eight communication systems for the government and military. Most of the information surrounding the site has been classified, but it is believed that this is the place that the president and Security Council would be housed in the event of a nuclear war.

According to the government, there’s nothing important here.

After a Freedom of Information request was responded to in 1999 by the Department of Defence, it was shown that a massive complex exists within Raven Rock Mountain capable of housing hundreds of people. Raven Rock is probably the most secure fallout shelter that exists, so this would be the best place to be in an apocalypse, that is if you can get access.

All of these locations would be ideal places to ride out the most popularised types of apocalypse that could occur. The problem is that nobody can really know what (if anything) will destroy civilisation as we know it, so the only way to really be safe is to equip yourself with a good knowledge of how to survive. If the breakdown of society does occur, knowing how to function without society’s modern conveniences will be worth more than any luxuriously appointed fallout shelter.